How did you spend your Halloween this year? I decided to dodge the trick or treaters and head to the Baltimore Soundstage for an awesome coheadlining metal show with Trivium and Arch Enemy! With Fit for an Autopsy and While She Sleeps also playing in support, it was looking to be an awesome night. The show was almost sold out and the venue was packed, well before the first band hit the stage! Fit for an Autopsy is an extreme metal band from New Jersey that took the stage in Halloween fashion as all the members were wearing costumes. Although I had not heard of this band before, a lot of the members in the crowd certainly had. The crowd was very loud and active and the band fed off their energy during their six songs set.

The evening energy didn’t even come close to leveling off when While She Sleeps took the stage. While She Sleeps are a five-piece metal band from Sheffield, UK whose lead singer seems to have quite a love of crowd surfing. There were a total of 7 crowd surfing incidents during WSS’s six song set, with 4 of those being vocalist Lawrence Taylor himself! This thrilled the audience, while greatly irritating venue security staff!

While She Sleeps

While She Sleeps Set List:
You Are We
Civil Isolation
Brainwashed
Feel
Silence Speaks
Hurricane

Next up was Arch Enemy and this was the band that I had mainly come to see. I’ve been a fan of Arch Enemy for years and their new album “Will to Power” is filled with incredible new songs… so this was the set I was looking forward to the most. The band definitely did not disappoint, and they delivered a crushing set of 15 songs including four from the new album. Arch Enemy are always a fun band to see with a high energy show and great live music reproduction. Crowd surfing began in earnest as the audience became a constant conveyor belt of floating bodies that definitely challenged the resources of venue security. Photographers often have to leave an AE photo pit early due to the amount of crowd surfers, but fortunately, that did not happen on this night and we were able to shoot the entire first three songs!

Arch Enemy

Arch Enemy Set List:
The World Is Yours
Ravenous
Stolen Life
War Eternal
My Apocalypse
Blood in the Water
You Will Know My Name
The Race
The Eagle Flies Alone
As the Pages Burn
Dead Bury Their Dead
We Will Rise
Avalanche
Snow Bound
Nemesis

The final band to take the stage was Trivium. They are currently touring their eighth studio album “The Sin and the Sentence” which was just released in October. When Trivium hit the stage, the crowd erupted and began singing along to the songs both new and old. Trivium gave us a twelve-song set with four songs from the new album, including the title track. Although not quite as energetic as Arch Enemy, Trivium still gave the audience a fun and energetic show and the new (as well as the old) songs sounded great in the live setting.

Trivium

Trivium Set List
The Sin and the Sentence
Down from the Sky
Betrayer
Until the World Goes Cold
Like Light to the Flies
Rain
Dusk Dismantled
Strife
The Heart from Your Hate
Kirisute Gomen
Thrown into the Fire
In Waves

As of this writing, the current co-headlining North American Tour has ended. But both Trivium and Arch Enemy will be touring Europe in early 2018, so our European readers can catch them there. As both bands are very early in the touring cycle for their new albums, North American fans will hopefully get another chance to see them when they come around again (Trivium already has some North America festival dates scheduled for late spring). Both of these bands will give you and awesome show…. So, hit the road with them and experience them live!